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What's going on here? Why are you all in this strange room that hardly anyone ever goes to? Harumph. Warning klaxons have been sounding throughout the ship. Messages about imminent departure, rescue mission, blaah, blaah, yackity smackity. The self proclaimed captain comes in at a fast lope. "Distress call, unknown origin, message mostly garbled. Presuming it to be Outverser. Likely need doctors, engineers, and combat personnel. Five minutes out." He informs the pilot of the location. The pilot promptly starts going there. "Battle stations, prepare an impromptu boarding party composed of all necessary personnel. We do not have time to waste."
Ector asks, "Launch bay Sah? Make the troops ready for boarding."
Shok prepares his small team of marines for a boarding procedure quickly running over where they need to be and what needs to be done before taking a turret position in case they meet hostiles before the boarding process.
"I'll prep the Gazriki," Eelim nods, putting the location in his PDA. The shirtless Aukami thug turns then, moving to go and do just that.
Ruin prepares by getting into a spacesuit, though he leaves the helmet for last, and grabbing his workbelt.
Ikin goes to get into his EVA suit, packing himself an energy pistol from the armory in the process, and heads back into the launch bay to wait on whatever they're going to have him do. Fun stuff.
"Medbay is prepped and ready to receive patients," Kallyn chimes in over the ship's comms, "I'll send one of the other medics over for the boarding party."
Rynnkk blesses off whatever Ecotor and Eelim need to do to get prepped while the ship whips through whatever FTL space is called these days. Kallyn also gets the OK. At this point, the five minute trip is just about half finished.
Ruin walks over to stand nearish Ikin, a bit behind the marines, helmet under one arm. "Assess damage, repair where possible?" he asks. "Or what's the order?"
"Gazriki's prepped and ready to go," Eelim speaks through the comms.
Kallyn arrives where people are loading up, accompanied by one of the other medics from sick bay. He's a young Falari male, and the woman is going over a checklist with him. "And whatever you do, don't get shot. You're a doctor, not a meat shield." She boards only long enough to give Eelim a kiss and murmur, "Good luck," as she is not, in fact, accompanying the party.
Shok keeps in his little turret with a shap eye out for anything hostile looking but so far doesn't appear to have found anything. The marines merely stand and wait for the boarding procedure.
Ikin shrugs and says, "No idea. I don't even really know what we're looking at yet..." the big bird adjusts the tool vest over his EVA suit and his helmet. The big bird tilts his helmet-head around to peer at the holoscreens, to see if he can't find out what they're going for.
It's a fast five minutes. Now, Ikin knows. When they get to the distress call's origin, there's a random Hiververse small craft that's been heavily modified to pack some sort of punch. Still, it don't got nothing on the Alopex, yo. It did, however, have enough weapons to cripple the equally random Outverser vessel. Right now, as the Alopex shows up, the Hiverspace vessel is delinking from the crippled ship. Rather abruptly, it looks like. For kicks and giggles - or more likely panic and pants pooping, the rogue Hiverspace ship fires at the Alopex. Out of range, it doesn't do much good other than ID the badguy. A rascally rocket does manage to somehow hit the shields and cause the flickering of monitors and random sparks that is a prerequisite in this type of situation. Rynnkk, unimpressed, gives Shok a nod as well as lighting up the firing ship as a target in the weapon control system. His suggestion is, "Use the big gun."
"Love you, Bay. Be safe." Eelim returns the kiss, looking serious for once. He waits patiently for the group to join, settling into his hoverchair and cracking his knuckles.
Shok smirks ever so lightly at Rynnkk's suggestion of using the big gun and obliges him quite willingly. After taking aim and locking in the target the magaigh opens fire.
Ruin puts on his suit's helmet, activating the comm. "Ready," he says quietly.
Ector blurts, "Board the shuttles in your practiced sticks ... remember to make room for the specialists." As leads the boarding teams he locks his helmet to his combat armor. He tests the commo channels, "Sabaids one through three report green if you receive this."
The medic straps into the Gazriki while Kallyn dodges a little sparking on her way back to sick bay.
Ikin heads down into the Gazriki and straps himself in next to the medic, making sure he has all of his tools.
The radio check is green. Meanwhile, Rynnkk surreptitiously fires at the badguys himself. Between Shok and the not entirely useless commander, the vessel explodes in outer spacy goodness. Now, it's time for the away team on the Gazriki.
Shok quickly gets out of his turret position and moves himself and his small marine team to the Gazriki as well to commence baording. THough it isn't without a mildly cocky smile on his face.
Ruin moves to take a seat behind Ikin, on the Gazriki, and straps in. He can't really help looking the ship over, it seems.
Meanwhile, back at the gazriki...the crippled ship is in some crazy spinning orbit after the abrupt departure and then demolition of the badguys. Rynnkk shows up at about the time Shok does.
Eelim straps in, in the cockpit, whereas the rest of the crew would be in the crew quarters of the shuttle. "Everyone good?" He yells back, "Strap in." The doors seperating the two parts of the shuttle are left open. Then Eelim kisses his index and middle finger, gently pressing it against the holophoto of Kallyn near the controls. "Lehgo." He quickly cranks a lever and grabs the controls, the shuttle rising smoothly off the ground and propelling out of the landing hub. He sets the trajectory towards the ship, hands gripped on the controls.
Ikin peers at the crippled ship, trying to learn what he can about it before they actually reach it. He looks just a touch nervous, though. What else is new?
The medic seems happy enough just staying quiet and going over Kallyn's orders in his head. He preens at one of his wings a bit and offers the other Falari a polite nod.
Why look, it's a starfarer. A middle-of-the-line ship with expanded crew space for voyaging from star to star with your 4-man crew. End quote. Right now, the vessel is all sorts of gimpy with its standard airlock a mess after the badguys ditched it. The fact that it's rotating on some sort of alternating axis isn't helping matters. As the bridge spirals into view, it's apparent that there is distinct lack of bulkhead up there, a Heykayti from the looks of it, floats on out all dead and flash frozen.
Shok shakes his head a bit at the sorry looking vessel and notes "If it's as bad on the inside as it looks from the outside we might not even need a boarding team after all."
Ruin mmms. "For it to be rotating like that indicates some propulsion damage at least," he says quietly. "Need to see if it can be repaired enough to move under its own power. And what killed the crew. It's not an unknown pirate tactic to take a ship, send out a call, and then raid the responders."
Ector is riding in the shuttle and is almost dozing but looks a bit more awake as the shuttle nears the wrecked ship. He adjusts his gear and looks bored after Shok's announcement.
"Starfarer class," Eelim says through his comms back to the Alopex, "Bridge is compromised, one dead from what I can see, Hekayti." The Aukami thug approaches the ship, prepping the airlock-creating drill under the shuttle. The whole Gazriki shifts noticeably back and forth as he does so.
"Copy that," comes the voice of the nameless Alopex bridge guru. Meanwhile, nothing else much happens as the breach is readied. Well, outside of the banter among the marines in the crew bay.
Ikin taps his fingers together, fidgeting a bit while he waits for something to actually happen, of course. Whee. Fun. Ruin mmms. "If we have psis aboard, is any life sensed nearby?"
A useful and novel suggestion coming up, Rynnkk's attention is captured. He looks about those assembled in the bay. "Unfortunately, no," he tells Ruin.
"Hold on," Eelim warns as he eases the Gazriki towards the Starfarer. The drill latches on with a clunk, and then the shuttle shakes as it cuts open a makeshift airlock for the crew to board through. The Aukami wraith turns back and gives a thumbs up. "Green light on boarding." He flicks a switch, the red light near the boarding area lighting green. "Good luck yall."
"Don't forget to seal up your evo suits," the medic chimes as he does exactly that.
Ikin stands up and seals his suit but waits for the marines to go ahead of him. He's not exactly combat personnel, after all. Big bird tilts his helmet-head and crosses his arms in front of his chest.
Ector stands up and states, "Lead off Stick ... out for Secutity ... follow on Sticks at the ready! Specialists wait until the Marines are out,"
Shok stands and seals his own suit and makes sure all his marines are properly suited with a quick glance before having Kawk lead the way onto the crippled ship with Shok directly behind.
Lark, there is an Opodian mook in some sort of space suit cobbled together from innocent victims and questionably innocent school girls. He's got a plasma blaster in hand, looking not at all startled by this new fangled airlock. In fact, it looks like he wants in. And, there was a firefight! Kawk goes down, blasterized but not dead. At least, he's not dead judging by his flapping around on the ground.
And, the stuff around around Ector goes all Matrixy slow mo.
The medic is a medic. He stays behind on the ship for the time being. Kallyn did tell him not to get shot.
Ector is armed with an a Standard Sivadiand Pulse Pistol and a Toveil Amp Pistol. He fires at close range into the oncoming Opodian.
Shok pulls his slugthrowing rifle up as well, having abandoned his flashy new weapon for this apparenty. The rifle is promply aimed at the Opodian as well and fired just in case Ector's shots don't get the job finished.
Eelim hears gunshots already, frowning and rising from his seat as he grabs his pistol. Chhkk-chhk. He peers out the airlock, then heads back for his hoverseat, doing some scans for any other ships in the vicinity.
One of Ector's shots blasts a smallish crater in the bulkhead behind the bear-like creature that is not an ewok or a Castori. The other gets it in the leg. Shok nails it in the other leg, and the rest of the marines clean up the job, putting the creature out of its misery before, unless ordered otherwise by Shok and Ector, setting up security at the airlock while others press on, following whatever orders they get.
Ector steps carefully over the dead carcass and out after the Marines. He barks, "Lead team! Defensive perimeter! NOW! Follow teams set up to escort the specialists. Let's shake our tailhooks chaps ... we have someplace nicer ... and probably healthier to be today."
Ikin steps into the ship proper, hanging back behind the marines like the completely expendable mook he kind of is.
Right now, the airlock exits out into a corridor that runs along the spine of the ship. Good going Eelim. There's the messed up bridge at one end. There's a cargo hold on the other end. That's what the schematics say, anyway. Off to the left, there's the mess hall/lounge. Off to the right, there's the sleeping quarters. Up and down the corridor, there's nobody but you.
Ruin moves quietly to wait by Ikin; not even armed, unless one counts an engineer's toolbelt, just...patient.
Shok instructs poor Kawk to go see the medic who's still onboard the Gazriki to see about that little burn. After that's taken care of he keeps the rifle steady and ready to fire while moving forward to the rest of the group he explains "I'm checking the mess hall first." The Magaigh is true to his word and heads that way to look in and possibly shoot something.
The medic slips into the ship with the engineers and helps Kawk back to one of the medical stations in the Gazriki so he can tend to the wound.
Ector moves to check and see if the bridge is sealed. He says quietly, "I'd like at least one Engineer with me ... the other really should go with Shok." He motions to the Marines to be ready.
Ikin lines up behind Shok and nods to the pyracani, fiddling with his tool belt just a touch more. Whee, nerves/
Eelim glances left and right, alone in the cockpit. A pause, and he leans to the right slightly, his hoverchair compensating and gliding him to the left. He snickers a little bit, leaning to the left, and gliding that way. "Haha." The thug glances behind him quickly, then stands on the hoverchair. He leans forward, but a little too much, as the hoverchair loses balance, he totally just eats shit, falling onto his chest. "Ugh." He quickly gets up as he hears the medic approachin, about to tend to Kawk. Eelim brushes himself off, raising his chin up in greeting, composed by the time theyre in view. "What up? What's goin' on out there?"
Yeah, the bridge is sealed. There are flashing emergency lights going on, too. Shok finds some more Hekayti who have the look of dead mercs judging by their gear. They did fairly well for themselves. There are an even number of dead Opodians in the room. One equally dead Nall with a pile of Hekayti around it.
Ector ask Ruin quietly, "Can you hack it open or do we need to blow it? We have a Tamped Plasma Breaching charge if you can't." Ruin steps over to Ector. "You want this door unsealed?" he asks politely.
Shok doesn't like the look of that very much but announces to the rest of the group "Clear! Well. Aside from corpses." The next room The Magaigh heads off to hopefully with Ikin in tow is the cargo bay. The rifle is still up as he goes in once again preparing to shoot anything that looks a little too mobile to be a corpse.
"Kawk got shot," the medic replies lightly as he tends to the marina, "Marines are splitting up and sweeping the ship." He looks up briefly to Eelim, "Anything outside that we don't want to deal with?"
"Wait, wait, what's ol boy's name?" Eelim cackles as he eyes Kawk. Then he shrugs, shaking his head as he nonchalantly fixes his hoverchair and shakes his head as he sits back down. "Nah, been runnin' scans, there aint shit." He executes another scan. Snickers. "Kawk."
Ikin doesn't do too much, just follows behind shok like a good little lacky and attempts to avoid getting shot. Also like a good little lackey. Thankfully, Ikin has a name, else his demise would be assured.
Right now, there's nothing outside but the Alopex hovering like some overly protective mother.
The door to the bridge is sealed purely out of the routine need to keep the atmosphere in and space out. Ruin gets it open. The dead dude has floated off somewhere, maybe stuck to the side of the ship. Otherwise, the place is pretty barren and blown up.
Shok and his troops end up in what seems to be the cargo bay and engineering. Curious mix but whatever. In engineering/cargo bay, though, there are a couple of lively looking Opodians, a less lively looking insectoid creature, and a very lively and very visibly angry Nall who is berating the Opodians into setting up a defensive perimeter while getting the engines to work. The multi-tasking doesn't sit well with the mook bears. None of them seem to be engineers if one were to go by all the angry lights on the consoles and the sparking of equipment and just utter stillness of vital moving parts.
Ruin gives Ector a small smile. "Door open sir."
Yeah, Ikin and Shok both see that the Opodians have spotted them.
Shok curses under his breath before saying to Ikin "Hope you've been practicing your aim." With that the rifle is leveled on the Nall's head and fired.
Ikin pulls out a slugthrower pistol and points it at the Nall as well, apparently attempting to make sure that the most dangerous of the group is out of the game!
"Yes, Kawk," the medic muses to Eelim, "From the snippets of whispers I hear, that name's more appropriate for you." He makes a pelvic thrust gesture. Yes, while working on the wound. That poor marine.
"Yeah, I get it 'n a lot," Eelim counters to the medic, shrugging. "People be frontin' like gettin' ass is a bad thing, don't make no sense to me." The thug cackles at the medic. "Prolly fucked 'jo momma bird before I wifed up wit my girl." He extends a tongue out and widens his eyes as he does the pelvic thrust even cruder. "Oh..Miss Bird, aww yeah..." Poor Kawk indeed. Eelim laughs and turns to execute another scan, and then waves to the Alopex through the viewport.
Ector tells Ruin, "Find a Ship Status Display or some kind of map ... if we can get any power to the bridge we need a manifest if possible." He turns to the Marines behind them, "Half of you go find Shok and see if he needs help. The other half stay here." He then adds, "Oh and someone check on Kawk."
Ruin blinks. "Power to the bridge," he echoes. "Right." And he starts checking through the systems, to see what's damaged and where he'd need to go to get it working.
The Nall moves liked greased lightening right into Ikin's shot. He goes down for now, but he's clearly not out of the fight. The Opodians cluster up and return fire sporadically while Shok's marines fire back and Ector's come up to add additional fire power.
The scan is still blank with the Alopex being the lone other vessel in the sky.
There might be some sort of salvageable computer or something on the bridge, but it'd probably be quicker to check other places first. The place is pretty wrecked, and nobody has cleared the crew quarters yet.
Ruin heads out into the ship, following the damage. Crew is for medical people to check; his skill's with machines, and only machines. And this one needs to be made to work again.
"Dad? Damn, that explains a lot," the medic lets out a chirping laugh, shaking his head, "Never said it was a bad thing. Just sick of hearing about it, is all."
Shok moves into the room firing off a shot at an Opodian while the nice small talk is made by Eelim and the medic he's killing pandas...sounds about right. While moving into the room if at all possibly the Magaigh will make sure to tread on the currently downed Nall's junk or face whichever is more readily available.
Ikin shoots at an Opodian from where he is, mostly out of panic and the fact that they're firing back at him. Fun stuff, of course. Not the bravest soul, but at least he isn't pissing himself and running away!
Ector waits on Ruin. He has complete confidence in the Engineer. He says, "No Rush. I figure we're pretty much on clean-up now."
"Oh, were just gettin' started, fam. Finna fuck on every goddamn part of the Alopex. You know we got caught once on this here shuttle? Funny as hell. Ol' boy was pretty heated, ready to brig me up real swift." Eelim responds to the medic, then settling back in his seat. "Kamir's dick their takin' their sweet ass time."
Shok and Ikin both make rag dolls out of a couple of Opodians, leaving two breathing in the room. Kicking the downed Nall was probably not the best idea ever, the little lizard's have apparently given up their old timey over powered sword rail guns in favor of plasma rifles. Anyway, the lizard doesn't use that. It's in some sort of medium armor with special-whooptee-doo claws on the gauntlets. It uses those to try to rip off Shok's leg or something equally violent. Wounded, it's not dead yet. Still, the attack was pretty sorry.
Meanwhile, Ruin finds power in the crew quarters which aren't the scene of a gun battle past or present. Whatever else in there, you'd have to look for.
Ruin isn't being an investigator, at the moment. Having a power source, he simply gets on with routing that power to the bridge functions.
Shok moves to attempt the killing blow on the Nall that narrowly misses him by swiftly kneeling down and trying to bite it's neck. More specifically in a manner that will pierce the jugular. Naturally, this leaves little room to give Ikin any new orders.
"Gave the term 'cockpit' a new meaning?" the medic asks with a chuckle, "Just keep it out of sick bay, right? It's unhygenic to be leaving fluid deposits all over the place... Keep it out of the mess hall, too. People eat there." He shrugs his wings. "Don't look at me, I'm not a marine. I just fix them."
Ikin doesn't exactly have much in the way of combat sense, but he can fire a gun okay, apparently. The bird slows down enough to attempt a wounding shot on the outer shoulder of one of the opodians, enough to take him out of commission without actually killing him.
Ector waits silently for Ruin. He calls out, "I'm pretty sure we DO NOT need a passenger manifest. A cargo and valuables manifest would be helpful. Once we have that I need you to go help Ikin start the salvage."
Ruin reroutes the power from the crew quarters to the bridge, and then uses that power to boot up the computer systems. By the typing, it also involves the electronic equivalent of mugging the computer in a dark alley and beating it with brass knuckles until it talks. But in the end, Ector's requests are pulled up on screen.
The Nall dies a gruesome and spectacular death as Shok rips his throat out or whatever. The Opodian that Ikin shot at is missed, and the bear like creature returns fire before he gets cut down by the less enthusiastic about taking prisoners marines. That leaves the dead? dying? bug creature on the ground.
Meanwhile, in the world of technology, Ruin gets the job done in expert fashion. The list is in Galactic standard. Old Universe standard which may or may not be new universe standard. Anway, there's no cargo and no valuables. Just a blank log.
Shok does not in fact rip the Nall's throat out. Rather he pierces the jugular to deliver the killing blow but keeps hold of the neck while standing and gives his head a few very strong, fast, shakes to break it's neck just in case. "Clear." Is the only thing the Magaigh says after this.
Ruin looks toward Ector. "is there anything else you wish?"
Ikin talks into his commlink, "Uh... We might have some live people... Odarite, I think. Needs medical attention... I don't know if it's alive or not. What should I do?"
Ector scans the on-screen info for anything valuable for easy transport. He calls the Marines Senior Doal and says, "Standby for a looting list." He toggles over to Ikin, "Have a marine you are with /ASK/ him how he got aboard ... if we get an answer ... I'm pretty sure we didn't come here to rescue Odoarites. Either way ... you probably want to leave the room."
All the badguys are dead or seem near enough that it doesn't matter. Ikin makes a good call on the potential Odarite. It is twitching some, but it can't or doesn't respond to any questions. Black ichor leaks out of it. Rynnkk sends the Falari medic to check it out. The medic looks confused. The medic does what it can but just gets the wounded back on the Gazriki. Whatever intel can be gathered gets gathered along with weapons that look like they're worth taking. It's not much of a haul of intel or weapons. In fact, the ship looks surgically wiped clean. Well, prior to the gun battle.
Ector calls on ALL channels, "This IS the RECALL BEACON call! (BEEP! BEEP! DEEDLEY-BEEP!) ALL AWAY PARTY EVAC! NOW!!!"
Ikin heads back to the ship, apparently relieved that Rynkk sent the medic rather than leaving the bug to die. Big bird sits down, straps in, removes his helmet, and just stares at his hands for a while.
Ruin nods and treats this as an order, tucking away his tools and returning to the hsip.
And, toodle-pip, everyone loads up on the Gazriki, a personnel and equipment check is made, and they're off for the Alopex. Victory!
Ector sits silently and says nothing. He waits to get back to the Alopex and get debried."
It's funny. The crippled vessel doesn't blow up as soon as they leave it. It just floats around doing nothing in particular. Anyway, back on the Alopex, Rynnkk says, "Prepare the after action reports, do another equipment check, and make sure all the wounded are taken care of (three plus Kawk). Dismissed to your duties."
Ikin heads right on out to the engineering bay like a good puppet. Muttering "Yes master" is of course, optional. The big bird yawns and heads right on out!
Ruin doesn't have anything to say, but does offer a small smile, a bow, and then he follows after Ikin to analyze the data recovered and make his report.